


Growing Pains

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, eldritch guardians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 09:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18938536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Ok, overused saying as a title aside, in rotg, the guardians get weaker when they lose believers, but jack is pretty powerful throughout the entire movie, despite having 0 believers. Well, what if what we saw was jack at his weakest. As he gains believers, he becomes more and more powerful. At first this is very pleasing to jack, because come on, new powers / enhanced powers! Awesome! But he goes from 0 believers to most of east usa, and the power grows too much for him. He goes mad with power, literally. Paranoia, fear, agression, and did i mention paranoia? He attacks the guardians and runs away, leaving them to figure out a way to help him. Along the way, they have to fight jack several times in order to help him (he starts attacking anyone thar can see himBonus points if- jack mentions headaches to the guardians previous to his freakout, but they just brush it off.- pitch trys to get him to join him, but gives up like “you is fucking nuts see ya”...[cut for length]"It’s hard being a baby eldritch abomination. Especially when you don’t know that that’s what you are. It’s also plenty hard for everyone around you, too.





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 10/14/2015.

“Guess it wasn’t just a headache,” Bunny said wryly. He and the other Guardians were holed up in the Warren, the place, as the embodiment of springtime, which was least susceptible to Jack’s vastly increased powers. Still, it was a little cooler among the green and flowers than it usually was. No one had mentioned anything, but that was at least partly because talking about what was happening tended to draw Jack’s attention, and that hadn’t been going well for much of anyone these days. “Anyway, what’s the news from the rest of you? Kids are really hoping the blizzard’s going to end soon. They’re starting to pick up how worried their parents are about it. And where it’s not snowing, the cold is starting to throw off a lot of agriculture.”  
  
North nodded. “Children are not finding the snow so wondrous anymore. Wonder is mostly about how this can be happening, but is not very good wonder.”  
  
“In some recent memories I’ve gotten I can see that there are a lot of problems that are going to be really difficult to fix that this storm is causing,” Tooth said. “It’s affecting everything, and—well, it remains unnatural. My fairies are having a rough time flying in it, and if it was just snow, just wind, they could phase through it.”  
  
Sandy frowned deeply, and his signs were terse and to the point. Sometimes, in a blizzard like this, a last dream and infinite sleep were all that he could do.  
  
The others shivered. Sandy might be the oldest of them, but it was hard for them to imagine enough time ever passing for them to communicate something like that so unflinchingly.  
  
“Obviously this cannot go on,” North said. “Jack has attacked us and beaten us since the sudden growth of his powers, but we should not take that to mean that he cannot be defeated.”  
  
“This doesn’t really seem like a way that we should be talking about Jack, though,” Tooth said. “He’s still a Guardian, and so new! If we tried to stop him in a way that was really a defeat for him, there’s a huge risk that we could go too far.”  
  
Sandy shook his head.  _That_ , at least, is doubtful. All of Jack’s apparent power now is more than Pitch’s ever seemed to be, and we’ve thrown everything we’ve got at Pitch before, and he’s never been destroyed.  
  
Bunny frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe more to the point, Sandy, is that you weren’t destroyed when it really looked like you were. Comparing Guardians to Guardians, you know. Also, speaking of, if we do defeat Jack, we still have to figure out why this happened with him but none of the rest of us.”  
  
“None of us had to wait very long between becoming Guardians and gaining believers,” Tooth said. “At least as far as I know.” She looked to Sandy, who nodded. “The increase in our power that came with each new believer was folded in with simply becoming a Guardian in the first place. I know that I, at least, used that power to figure out what I could or couldn’t do as a Guardian. Maybe what’s happened to Jack is because for the years he didn’t have believers, he got used to using all the power he had as the spirit he was, all the time, simply to exist.”  
  
“And now he is doing the same with his new power.” North nodded. “I can see, with no specific task, holding nothing in reserve, this could happen. Jack is probably putting himself in danger in this way. If he is always using all his power at once, if his number of believers ever drops, even by one, it could be disastrous for him.”  
  
“Okay, that makes sense,” Bunny said. “But why the blizzard? He’s not the Guardian of winter, he’s the Guardian of fun. Shouldn’t the problem be something like uncontrollable laughter?”  
  
“Maybe…” North said, then paused. “Maybe Jack has forgotten to think of himself as a Guardian.”  
  
“If he’s not thinking of himself as a Guardian, the kids who do believe in him—and spread belief in him—are going to start seeing him differently. Him being a winter spirit is going to become more important than anything else. That’ll give him more of the strength he needs to keep this blizzard going.” Bunny restlessly paces a few steps. “Even if that’s not the case, we probably have to act right away.”  
  
Sandy held up his hand. Wait. We don’t have all perspectives yet. We need all perspectives when situation is this dire.  
  
“Well, we’re not going to get Jack’s own input,” Bunny said. Sandy shook his head. “Oh, come on—not in the Warren, seriously—if he tries anything—”  
  
Sandy shook his head again, more emphatically, which really needed some clarification, but he offered none and instead walked over to a boulder and behind it to its shadowed side. When he came into view again, he brought with him a shivering, unhappy-looking Pitch.  
  
“Is this something Sandy could always do?” North asked no one in particular. No one answered, both from not knowing and from the growing realization that Pitch didn’t just look irritated and cold, he also looked much stranger than usual. His skin didn’t reflect the colors around him with consistency, and not only his robe but also his body seemed smoky or blurry. Even Bunny, who had been about to say something, stopped short at the sight of the specter Sandy had brought here, even thinner than before, even taller, with longer limbs and more deeply shadowed eyes.  
  
Pitch looked down at Sandy with those eyes. “You didn’t catch me just to be a punching bag, did you? You Guardians have different problems right now.” His voice, though quiet, seemed to echo, and lingered in the mind of everyone who heard him.  
  
We know, Sandy told him. Have you seen Jack?  
  
Pitch gave a weird, hissing laugh. “I’ve done more than see him, I’ve fought with him. Why do you think I look like this, now?”  
  
“Did Jack take some of your power?” North asked. “If so, this is even more serious—”  
  
This time, Pitch’s laugh sounded slightly more normal. “You think that looking less human means that I have less power?”  
  
Sometimes that’s true, Sandy signed.  
  
Pitch replied with shadow-signs of his own, and soon he and Sandy were having an intense, silent argument, too fast for others to understand. North, Bunny, and Tooth moved into more defensive postures, and during the briefest of pauses, Tooth interrupted. “Pitch! You fought Jack. What did you learn?”  
  
Pitch scowled and signed one final thing to Sandy. “Why should I tell you?” he asked.  
  
Tooth flared her wings. “Because otherwise we’ll just have to assume that you learned something immensely to your advantage, and we’ll have to treat you as if you’re more dangerous than usual.”  
  
“And we’ll have to treat you as someone who wanted the world to end, purely out of spite,” Bunny added.  
  
“I never get offered rewards, only punishment,” Pitch mused. “That’s bad conditioning.” He raised his hands placatingly. “But anyway, this is what I learned about Jack: He doesn’t recognize himself as the author of his actions anymore. He actually doesn’t even recognize himself. Our fight was mostly the result of lingering negativity he holds towards me, at lot of it unconscious. His main conscious emotion is fear. And I’m not just saying that because it’s what I look for. His mind is spread out all over the place.”  
  
The other Guardians looked at each other in alarm, but calmed slightly when they saw Sandy nodding slowly, as if he was expecting this.  
  
“I can only guess that the problems Jack is having are related to the combination of an increase in power and the fact that he’s just now realizing he doesn’t have a real body.”  
  
“Hold on a minute,” Bunny said. “What was that again?”  
  
Pitch shrugged. “Jack’s body is merely solid thought. I don’t know exactly what happened to him; he probably died when the Man in the Moon chose him. It’s the sort of thing that can cause a lot of…emotional difficulties. Unfortunately for everyone Jack’s increase in power caused him to learn this strange fact about himself. He’s…ah…not in a state Sandy would want you to face right now. I, in contrast, have no regard for your personal safety.”  
  
“Sandy, what do you think we should do?” North asked.  
  
Wait, Sandy signed. I need to see Jack up close for myself.  
  
“Are you sure you’ll be safe? After all, you were fighting alongside us before,” Tooth said.  
  
Forgot what to look for, then. And will have Pitch with me.  
  
Everyone, including Pitch, burst out in sustained protest.  
  
STOP. The sign over Sandy was huge. I’ll be safe, there’s no one else. Pitch, you’re losing your edges. Surely you’re remembering also?  
  
“Old man, things have changed,” Pitch said, though there was uncertainty in his strange new voice.  
  
Jack needs to know what we knew. We ought to know it again, this—the signs quickly became unintelligible—is getting tiresome.  
  
“True, but…” Pitch scoffs. “I suppose there’s no reason why I should have expected to make this decision unentangled. Fine.”  
  
I’ll be fine, Sandy reassured the others again, then left with Pitch.  
  
“Does anyone have the slightest idea what that was about?” Bunny asked.  
  
“Not at all!” said Tooth. “But I’m going to stay awake until we get some explanations!” 


End file.
